Resurrecting Dr. Gonzo for Purely Self-Indulgent Reasons on the Morning of the Fourth and Final Night of the Blackout

The Sad and Tragic Fate of Garage Rock...Liver Detoxification in a Post 9/11 Society...O' Mama! Can This Really Be the End?...Sparks Plus as a Sleep Substitute...We Are the Rats, Indeed...Party With Me, Punker

After three days and nights of savage and brutal brain and organ torture at the hands of these filthy scum who decide every year to put on this atavistic endeavor some half-wit dingbat of a senile ex-punk rocker calls the Blackout, the sight of a beautiful, all-too-rare sunny Chicago morning is almost a miracle to behold. Sprinklers water the grass patches outside, the singing sparrows have overthrown those filthy pigeons, and here, on Cortez Street, on the periphery of the Middle West and the stinking cesspool that has come to be known as the American Dream in 2006, I can safely say that I'm the only one of the garage rock attendees appreciating this fully awake right now.

And so much for that. Sparks Plus makes all things possible, the perfect drug in this foul era of W Bush's sinking second term. In less than two hours, I will leave to do a talk show. After this, I will be playing drums with treacherous lying freaks. The psychic damage of what this portends is not something I can properly sort out yet, at least not without mescaline and a couple Flintstone Vitamins, both of which are nonexistent at this Blackout festival.

How long can we maintain this awful pace? The ugly and undeniable fact facing us today is that May 27, 2006, will go down in history as the End of Garage Punk, Forever. Naturally, there will be a Raging Against the Dying of the Light, but Res Ipsa Loquitor. The riffs are all exhausted, at least until 2020, and I will be too old to enjoy what happens fourteen years from now, so it's time to hunker down like Nixon when the banshees circled overhead as Watergate sent his miserable joke of a Presidency crashing into stinking infamy.

Yes. Get through the day. Put your hope in the Krunchies and Mind Controls. Wear floral printed shirts and act like an ass. Start a new band. Today is the sad end of a happy time, and we well celebrate it's passing in high style. Sleep is for the weak, and we are nothing if not Strong and Decent Americans, even if we're French.

Selah.